The all mighty skydaddies, the 3000 three letter agencies lurking on the internet and the very much democratic, benevolent and totally not authoritarian systems looking out for our human rights demand of me ahead of everything to state that i do not condone violence and this topic is just for the purpose of debating and critical thought.
The starting statement shall be:
Violence is a birthright to every living being simply on the basis of being alive, first and foremost because life cannot exist on this planet without violence.
From the basic concept of procuring food (which even in the case of herbivores is done through the destruction of another living being), to the very act of self defense in order to not become food, violence is not only essential, but outright a requirement for being alive.
Many of these aspects remain inherently true for humanity even in it’s civilized state, but to add an extra twist: You always hear from politicians that violence is inexcusable, unjustifiable and intolerable.
For the purpose of the debate, my retort to this idea is that those in power; those who hold the capital on violence, do not get to claim that violence is unacceptable when directed at them. Especially not when they have taken away all recourse and control over the system, from the people.
The word “violence” is attributed to human beings only.
Picking an apple off the ground and eating it is not violence. Picking a vegetable and eating it is also not violence.
There is no thing that one would need self defense from, in order to not become food, when one lived in a city for example.
When a human being will not become food and that human being can survive without murdering animals, then violence is totally and absolutely unacceptable.
The word violence is defined as an action that is meant to destroy or injure through physical force.
Every definition im looking at defines it as such, so i have no idea why violence would be attributed to human beings only. Every living being is capable of violence whether direct or indirect.
Feeding is inherently an act of destruction.
A vegetable is a living organism. Your act of picking and eating it destroys and kills it.
It is by definition an act of violence.
This is a bit of a red herring. The fact that “under ideal circumstances” you are protected inside a city, does not really change anything about the nature of the problem.
Queue situations like the Holodomor in Ukraine and you will find yourself in a situation within a couple of weeks where your own fellow human beings would hunt you down for your meat.
That being aside, even inside of a city there are plenty of situations under which you would find yourself as the target of violence. From stray animals to criminals, violence absolutely does exist inside cities.
Is it okay for your to employ violence in return?
This is an interesting proposition. In a setting where all violence CAN be avoided, one could delegate violence to be morally unacceptable. Potentially.
Though this idea is very redactive in the way that it contends only with the feeding and sustenance part of the argument.
Violence can and will be used against you even outside of that context.
Governments can oppress you and use violence against you, so can criminals and other elements of society.
In summary:
While the proposition of a situation where violence is no longer required for anything (including hunting and sustenance) is interesting, its also unrealistic at present. But taken to it’s extreme, i do accept your idea that “if its not needed then it should not be”.
That being said, i’d suggest that you expand the concept of violence further than just utilization for hunting/sustenance. Afterall it exists in a lot of forms for a lot of reasons.
But if violnce has been and is essencial for life from the very outset, and it has been, then violence is a necessity even when no apparent need exists, for a healthy organism. This is why sports exist.
Just like nobody would call spacial awareness a luxury for when you are not already sat down and hooked up to a feeding machine.
Once more for all the people who still do not yet realise. Words, like the “violence” word, have many different definitions. So, absolutely any talk of, This “word” is defined as …, as though that definition is the only one, is just plain closedness.
Now if you want to use this one definition, of many, many definitions, for the “violence” word only, then this is perfectly fine and okay with me.
Is a tree a living being to you? If it is, then how exactly do trees destroy or injure through physical force?
Have you looked at every definition?
How many definitions have you looked at?
Why violence, even with your chosen definition here, is attributed to human beings only is something that can be explained.
I can tell that you are currently not wanting to question and discuss here so I will leave you with your belief here.
Considering that you have changed from what you previously wrote, you claiming that I have introduced a bit of a red herring is hypocritical.
I can see what your belief is here, and see that you are not open to anything else. Again you are not wanting to discuss and question things, so I will leave you with your belief.
I will try to focus on the scope of this discussion and not on the definition of the word violence. I am tired on debating definitions of words on this forum. I will use yours for this topic, since it does not seem problematic to me.
Yes, politicians often use pompous phrases to create emotions for the crowds. They declare “every violence is inexcusable“, but they leave aside the police violence, especially that against protesters who disagree with their politics. Leaders of strong countries have no problem on starting wars, and they often try to justify them on the “violence of the enemies towards …“ (you can add whatever you like on the dots).
Personally I dislike general statements like this. I need to know for which violence I am talking about before I decide if a condemn it or not. And I judge case by case. I prefer a cynic admission: Violence can be justifiable in certain occasions.
Its a bit on the other side of the aisle for me, but: What makes you say that?
Violence is just means to an end. A predator needs to hunt because if it doesnt, it will die.
If you provide a predator with an excess of food, it will instantly shed all motivation to hunt and run around for food. Why would it go through the stress, risk and energy/time investment of hunting when it is not hungry?
This is not to say that instincts dont remain. Even cats go around living out what millions of years of evolution has set their settings at (or at least some do), but its neither a requirement, nor do they eat what they catch because the drive for food has been negated.
At best hunting fulfills the purpose of play at that point, just like sports.
You may or may not partake in it. Its not a requirement you need to do in order to sustain your life.
As a complete alternate you can look at plants.
They have no need to hunt or move around to sustain themselves.
As such their violence is reduced to indirect and territorial aspects: Producing toxins that weakens other plants around them, create a complete coverage to block out sunlight (rainforests) completely obliterating competition, etc.
Using the broadest definition of a concept is a given when starting out. At least personally thats common sense on my part.
If i want to talk about a concept, im not going to point at the most nuanced and niche iteration of it, but anyway: Yes. Lets use the broad definition of violence which refers to destruction of (mostly) physical nature.
Dozens upon dozens of ways.
Some developed thorns and hooks, other developed chemical warfare and poisons, others climb and choke, some parasitize, yet again others operate indirectly such as the above mentioned rainforest example where the easiest way to deal with competition was to create as much coverage as you can and block them from the sun, choking and starving competition.
Evolution is very creative when it comes to violence, both offense and defense.
I think i outright went for the most open interpretations, while you up till now were just trying to be redactive…? Also… Belief?
Me saying that you killing an eating another living being then mechanically grinding it to a paste with your teeth and dousing the remains in acid before absorbing it’s base elements is violence is a “belief” according to you?
Im open for you to present your own definition for the act of hunting, murdering and absorbing another living being if you think violence does not fit the bill.
Would you call it “active diplomacy”? “Aggressive cuddling”? “Competitive cell restructuring”?
What did i change?
Im sorry, i have no idea what your issue is and everyone else is free to point out what i did wrong.
To me you sound like someone who went butthurt in less than 2 replies because i did not concede my definition of a concept to your hundred times more reductive idea of it.
If i see this wrong, then absolutely feel free to correct me, but just tossing in buckets of salt with “i will leave you to your belief” as if i told you that god is real because i feel him, is neither constructive nor does it have any form of purpose aside from an exceedingly poor attempt at saving face.
I have intentionally placed no restrictions in order to explore what level everyone finds justifiable and why its justifiable.
I thought this was obvious.
Naturally some violence cant be morally and ethically excused/justified while others can.
Each side should push in order to determine where the limit is. No?
Maybe i really really really suck at expressing myself.
I suck at giving specifics in these questions, because I can often find exceptions or special cases that I had not anticipated beforehand.
I will try to give some guidelines on my “justifiable violence“:
Self defense. In life threatening situations, you can use violence to protect yourself or your loved ones.
Revenge. I am generally against violence for revenge purposes for two reasons: a) you have to be absolutely sure that the person you want revenge from is the responsible for your pain. Otherwise, you risk to punish the wrong person. b) The “eye for an eye“ option leaves everyone blind. When you try to get revenge, you should be prepared that someone close to the one you hurt will continue the cycle.
I consider the death penalty a similar case. The country/state acts in a revenge mode and statistically I think it has been shown that it does not reduce crime in democracies. In dictatorships it reduces it, but there the dictator kills even political opponents, which is worse crime in my opinion.
Violence by police. Difficult topic. Police should be restrained as much as possible, but of course the personnel needs to protect citizens and their lives too.
Wars. In defending your country, I agree on that.
If you have any other case you want to discuss, you can add it.
But life dosn’t work like that, in terms of what it needs.
Attributes develop, as a random chemical event, and then either contribute something to survival or don’t.
Violence is also, specially among mammals, a day to day activity that aids in establishing hierarchies or working out minor problems. Violence isn’t just “kill and destroy,” there are gradients.
There’s even sublimated, psychic violence. Gossip Girl agressions and so forth. It is simply an integral part of life.
Even sex integrally incorporates violence. That’s a subject that’s dificult to broach philosophically, because there will always be the idiot who thinks you are talking about rape.
If you are a man, have you ever held a woman’s throat while making love? Not carressing, gripping. If you are a woman, have you ever had it held?
Exactly.
Violence isn’t a thing you decide to employ like a hammer. It is an ingredient of all things human. Life is violence.
As a corrollary, those who want to aliante themselves from violence simply push it into their subconscious and tend to be the perpetrators of the most horrific episodes of it.
So so.
You’d not classify competitive behavior as violence. Cats and dogs play by biting and scratching, roughhousing. You would not classify that behavior as “violence” would you?
In addition, none of that is done with the intent of harming, destroying and/or killing.
So yes: there absolutely are gradients, which btw the topic is meant to explore because clearly some aspects of violence are not only condoned but encouraged.
This is a two way street and as such not really an argument for any position pro or contra.
Attributes and traits develop and then vanish. Mutations occur, life tests whether or not they are beneficial and if not then it will be naturally selected out and become a dead end.
Correct. But not all of that is acceptable. Is it?
I guess what im asking is that you can have people who due to a mutation or whatever are extremely prone to violence and act pathological and psychotic. Would you argue that a nutjob who goes around and communicates through imprinting your face into the back of your skull is something acceptable or functional? Does their actions fulfill a purpose or it just a trainwreck begging to be put out of it’s misery?
This is a bit of a stretch again.
For the second time your idea about violence clashes with the definition i provided.
My definition was aiming to be broad by going for any willful destruction, but apparently you are using something several times broader.
Care to be specific and give a proper definition of what you think violence is?
Im asking because when you include sex in it, then i think you have reached a point where every form of individuality is referenced as an act of violence. Someone having a different opinion or existing separate of you would be considered violence if you are going with THIS broad strokes.
No… just because some people are into bdsm and whip and punch eachother till they bleed and swell, does not mean that “making love” is about that lol. Think about it for two seconds. Just because Dacryphiles (people who get turned on by crying) exist, does not mean that the point, purpose or normal way to have sex is to beat your partner till they cry.
If anything then that will slide away from the purpose and actual function of sex, and gets twisted into a paraphilia about dominance like how the guard in the prisoner Standford experiment got aroused from being able to beat up inmates.
I would say that being a prison guard is not very much related to getting an errection.
Probably beating up people shouldnt get you wet either.
This is a rainbow’s worth of colors and shades into mentally ill behavior.
Again, before i respond to this, i’d need you to post your definition of violence, because clearly you mean something MUCH more broader by it than i do, and while i lean towards disagreeing, i would like to see it straight for what it is.
When we encroach on the idea that other individuals existing beside you makes you question your own actions and values → thus other people existing is violence; then (while its not an entirely false argument) we went so broad that everything can be considered violence even your own existence which is an upfront to the neutrality of existence because you are going around trying to define things via your own experiences and understanding.
And just to circle back to the topic: Even if we go there, the topic has an integral part, and that is justification and acceptance. You seem to have completely left that part on the roadside.
My point is neither of those things, but simply that violence is such a basic structural element of life that they cannot, though not being the same thing, be separated or distilled from eachother.
What is the psychic difference, the neurological difference, between hurting to incapacitate, and hurting to play?
If a volcano erupts and kills your dog, it’s not violence
If a baby grabs your finger and wants to kill you, it’s violence.
If someone says things that you find offensive when not meaning to do so, it’s not violence
If someone says “You can totally go up there now and be a better trapeze artist than those, without even a net!! I trust you”, and you find that quite flattering, but that person wants you to try it and harm yourself from that, that’s violence.
Whenever you are not looking at intentions here, you’re missing the point
It can be unintentional. Do you call someone accidentally running into you violence? Stubbing your toe an act of self mutilation?
Okay, but please define violence for me because the way you describe it, it seems to be such a wildly broad concept that i want to have at least a semblance of understanding of it.
In short: Intent
Intentionally murdering someone for profit and unintentionally murdering someone in self defense are both acts of violence, thats true.
But when you start to broaden the concept to levels where you start to claim things like “words are violence” the very meaning of it starts to make no sense. The concept starts to break down.
At that stage everything is violence.
Giving birth to you is violence.
Existing is violence.
Sex is violence.
Thats why im asking you to define it because what you are implying is so next level that im not even sure if it makes sense anymore.